ILO discuss Youth Employment Crisis and Myanmar’s reforms

di Alessandro Batazzi

GENEVA – On May 30the International Labour Conference (ILC) began its 101th session in Geneva discussing important issues, including the youth employment crisis and the recent Myanmar Review.

The annual meeting held by the International Labour Organization (ILO) known simply as the ILC wherein member states meet, represented by a delegation made up of government, employers and worker delegates. The conference structure largely reflects the ILO’s structure, being “the only tripartite U.N. agency with government, employer, and worker representatives [making it] a unique forum in which the governments and the social partners of the economy of its 183 Member States can freely and openly debate and elaborate labour standards and policies.”

The agenda this year covered the Conference’s main tasks, but included an assortment of other equally important topics affecting the international political and economic scene. Two topics were widely discussed: the global youth employment crisis and force labour situation in Myanmar.

Currently, ILO statistics indicate that “young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults and over 75 million youth worldwide are looking for work”, mainly as a result of the worsening economic crisis. The trends started appearing in 2007, but since then it has increased by 4 million, primarily in the Developed Economies & European Union. Addressing the issue after seven years since the last resolution on the matter, global leaders including Spain’s Prince Felipe and Zambian President Michael Chilufya Sata called for an integrated global approach to tackle unemployment to guarantee sustainable and decent employment for the youth. These words echoed those of ILO’s Director General, Juan Somavia who opened the ILC stating:

“There is little intergenerational solidarity when the adult generation who formulates policy, lets the young generation carry a heavy share of the burden of the crises. [… In many different ways, young people are telling us “you don’t listen to us”. […] True to our heritage of dialogue we reached out. Young people reciprocated, and I have made their sensible demand my own: “no solution for us without us.”[1]

At the end of May the ILO hosted the Youth Employment Forum (23-25 May), the culmination of 46 national consultations with around 5000 representatives of young people’s organizations across regions. At the Forum, one hundred young people from employers’, workers’ and other youth organizations discussed the issue, which resulted in a report presented to the ILC a report with their views and ideas on how to tackle the crisis.

In light of the recent reforms in the country, the ILO decided on 13 June to lift restrictions on the full participation of Myanmar in its activities and decided to review the progress on the elimination of forced labour in the country next year. The restrictions were implemented in 2000, after a Commission of Inquiry concluded that Myanmar was not implementing recommendations made in 1998 to tackle the widespread use of forced labour. The restriction excluded the Government of Myanmar from receiving ILO technical cooperation and assistance whereas now, as a result of the decision, the two “have agreed on a joint strategy for eliminating forced labour”.

The decision was made a day before the visit by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Member of Parliament in Myanmar on June 14. In her speech, the leader of the NLD who had been under house arrest for over 15 years called for more democratic reforms to support labour rights in Myanmar. Future reforms will need to tackle the above mentioned forced labour problem, as well as increase the legal protection of rights of workers.

In itself,  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip is a symptom of times changing for better. She had previously refused leaving Myanmar, wary of the government and afraid of not being allowed to come back.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech was a strong representation of the ILO’s worries. As she called for investments and international aid to help the economic development in Myanmar, she warned that these must be supported by a strong and responsible legal system. This will ensure that all marginalized and vulnerable groups such as the youth, highly unemployed in Myanmar as everywhere else, will benefit from a sustainable and beneficial process of growth.

Development cannot come without infrastructure to support it. Myanmar can potentially be a symbol of international cooperation to overcome the economic crisis, the youth unemployment crisis and to deliver socially responsible results for the whole world to witness and learn from.

NB: First posted on Jforward- http://www.jforward.org on 18 June, 2012

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